Spanish election candidate quits over bare breast ‘joke’

MADRID—A female Spanish election candidate quit the race Wednesday after posting a fake photograph on her Facebook account of the country’s defense minister apparently showing a bare breast.

The conservative Popular Party candidate, Francisca Pol, apologized over the picture of Defense Minister Carme Chacon meeting with defence officials, altered to appear as if her shirt was open to reveal a breast.

On her Facebook page, Pol had reportedly commented: “What a Socialist Party minister has to do to win votes.”

Both the comment and the digitally enhanced photograph, which was widely shown in the Spanish media, have since been taken down from the candidate’s Facebook page.

“The candidate for the Senate list for Majorca today submitted her resignation from all public posts,” said a statement by the Popular Party, which is widely expected to win the November 20 vote.

Pol quit voluntarily so as not to harm her party and fellow candidates in the election, it said.

“A thousand pardons for the image of the minister that I posted within the colloquial context of this page, which is an absolutely false montage circulating on the Internet and which I

immediately withdrew when realizing it was an inopportune joke in very bad taste,” Pol said on Facebook.